The Immediate Plan of Action (IPA) adopted by the Special Session of the FAO Conference in November 2008 foresees the Decentralization of the Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) as of 1 January 2010. In this context, the Conference decided that 82% of the total TCP appropriation will be allocated to the FAO regions under the authority of the Regional Representatives. An indicative share will be however, retained under the authority of the Assistant Director-General of Technical Cooperation Department (ADG/TC) for emergency (15%) and interregional projects (3%), The share of the TCP appropriation at the disposal of each region is decided by the Governing Bodies every four years during the discussions on the Medium-Term Plan.

The region of Europe and Central Asia received an allocation of USD 8.7 million for regional, subregional and national TCP projects (excluding emergency TCPs) for the biennium 2010/2011. According to the newly established procedures, the Regional Representative allocates the regional TCP resources to national, subregional and regional projects when an official request has been received, and when a project proposal has been approved by the TCP Coordinator and endorsed by a Peer Review Committee. The TCP Coordinators in the European and Central Asian region are: i) the Regional Representatives for regional projects; ii) the Subregional Coordinator for subregional projects; and iii) the FAO Representative/Subregional Coordinator for national projects.

FAO's Governing Bodies have decided upon a series of criteria that are to govern the use of TCP resources, every request for TCP assistance is therefore appraised against these criteria in order to determine its eligibility.

The main objective of the TCP is to respond to problems identified by national stakeholders and expressed in the form of official requests, submitted by the member countries and its institutions to FAO. In response to that, FAO will provide technical assistance support in the most efficient manner, while the implementing institution in the member countries will drive and manage the process. This includes active participation in the formulation, implementation and monitoring, as well as the integration of TCP support within national, subregional or regional programmes.

While the responsibility for managing the regional allocations is delegated to the respective Regional Representatives, the ADG/TC retains the authority to take remedial measures including redistribution of part of the regional allocation, if required.

More details can be found at the TCP website.

CONTACT

Regional Programme Officer (TCP): Goran STAVRIK